


Visitor

by hanktalkin



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Nonbinary Character, Other, Star Trek References, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23270191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanktalkin/pseuds/hanktalkin
Summary: some thoughts while playing stardew
Relationships: Maru/Player (Stardew Valley)
Kudos: 8





	Visitor

She found Lewis near the fences.

“Who was that?” she asked, watching the figure disappear down the path, her medical bag thumping against her leg as she came to a stop.

“Hm? Oh him? That’s the new farmer, the one who’s taking up the old plot in the west.” Lewis looked like he was he away somewhere else. “He said his name was…Post?”

“Did he?” Maru couldn’t see the stranger anymore, their back lost in dappled shadow.

“Yes. Strange isn’t it? Well,” Lewis said with a clap of his hands. “I’m going to let everyone know that we’ve got a new member of our community. Spread the news to whoever you see!”

With that he left, whistling a tune from an old TV show she couldn’t quite remember.

* * *

With her hip, she pushed the auxiliary door outwards, summer air and cricket noises escaping into the house as she crossed seal into the outside world. They jerked their head from the telescope, barking out an alarmed, “Kobayashi Maru?”

“Yeah, just me,” she assured them. She was used to the way they startled, the way they never seemed sure of her face, even when looking right at her. “Thought we could use some snacks.”

They nodded, but didn’t look through the telescope again. She set down the veggie/dip combo on the foldout table, but it became clear she was the only one interested in getting back to stargazing.

“Why do you always call me that?” she asked. “Kobayashi Maru?”

“Do I?” They tilted their head, but she couldn’t get a full look at them through the sunglasses. The glasses were a strange sort, ones that wrapped all the way around the back of their head as though perpetually afraid they’d fall off. Maybe that was why they couldn’t see her all that well.

“Back during the dance,” she pointed out, scooping dip with a chunk of cauliflower. “And once when I ran into you on the beach.”

They made no move, but she was used to the slow plod as they stumbled through their thought process. Eventually they looked at the sky, and waved a hand about. “Kobayashi Maru, lonely little boat. Sad little traveler in an endless sea.”

“Was that poetry?” she asked. When they didn’t answer, she scooted closer. “Did you write that?”

Their mouth wavered, as though not sure what expression to make. “Elliot helped.”

That made sense, she supposed. She leaned backwards, taking in the whole expanse of the sky without, arms tucked to support the stiff spot in the back of her neck. “You think I’m lonely?”

“Out here, always,” they said. “Ocean of stars.”

She raised a hand, tracing a constellation, one she knew contained infinite multitudes of galaxies, each with its finite multitudes of stars. “When you think about it,” she said. “It didn’t take any time at all for sailors to chart the whole world. But an ocean of stars isn’t like that. We’re going to long dead before we even _begin_ to explore the whole thing.”

Her hand stopped, palm flat against a canvas.

They looked at her, then up at the stars. “No.”

“No?” She turned to them.

They shook their head, more sure than she’d ever seen them. They took her hand in both of theirs, and guided it away from the cluster she’d indicated to. Instead, they traced paths, climbing degrees until her finger was lazing on an innocuous little patch of sky, struck like black ink where the feeble lenses of her biological eye could make no distinction.

“What are we looking at?” she asked them.

“Right, what. There.” They still had their hands on hers.

“Oh. Of course.” So she stared past their interlocked fingers, starkly bright against the empty smudge of sky.

* * *

Emily wandered around the produce isle, humming a tune to herself. She didn’t seem to actually be looking at the product so much as avoiding certain color tiles on the floor.

“Hey Emily,” Maru said politely.

“Oh, hey Maru!” Her face brightened even more, which hadn’t seemed possible a moment ago.

“You seem to be in a good mood. Day off at the saloon?”

“I just had the best dream,” she said, wandering closer. “There was this place with all this water and…Post was there. I don’t know. There’s just something special about him.”

“Yeah?” Maru stepped awkwardly to the side, but she needn’t have bothered. Emily was staring past her again.

“Yeah.” There was an old poster, one for an alien horror movie long out of theaters. It was plastered and fading against the wall, and at first that’s what Maru thought Emily was looking at. That was until Emily fixed her beaming gaze on Maru once more. “You’re so lucky Maru.”

Maru checked over her shoulder. “I am?”

But then Emily was heading somewhere again, and Maru didn’t get a chance to ask what she meant by “lucky.”

* * *

“He’s been at it for hours,” Elliot said, turning a page in his book.

Maru set her delivery by his chair and watched the farmer walk about the beach, dragging a stick behind them. “Have you asked him what he’d doing?” she asked, squinting across the foggy sand.

“I didn’t want to interrupt what might be a creative process.”

She pulled her coat tighter around herself. In her opinion, it war far too cold to be reading a book outside on a reclining chair. “I’m going to go ask him what he’s doing.”

“Alright,” Elliot said idly as she set off down to the shore. “Thanks for the stool.”

The world seemed too bright, the fog distorting what would have been bright daylight into a wall of pure white, one that not even the reflective sand could hope to mirror. The farmer dropped their stick, stopping to stare at the ground only for a moment before scampering off to a pile of seaweed. Now that she was closer, she was able to see deep scratches in the wet sand, routes carved in crags that spiraled in all directions. Her head turned as she walked, trying to glimpse what sort of picture she was meant to make.

She stopped, shoes just short of where the water lapped at the sand. Even from this perspective she couldn’t tell what it was, but now she noticed the various shells and twigs pressed into the ground.

“What is all this?” she asked as they returned with an armload of stones.

They cocked their head, those impenetrable shades carving away the worst of the sun’s glare, leaving nothing but sheer white in their wake. “A map.”

“Map to where?”

“Nowhere.” Their tone was distant, somewhere she couldn’t follow.

She saw a sea star pressed in the epicenter of convergent lines. “Is this a star chart?”

“Maybe.”

She waited for a second. “…Can I help?”

“…Maybe.”

She picked up a stick and got to work. It was strange, drawing maps for star systems she’d never seen before, scratching constellations that didn’t exist. At some point they began to hum, their strange, lilting voice catching on salt crusted wind, and for the life of her she wished she could remember where that song was from.

“Lonely little navigator,” they said maybe to her or maybe to themself. “Finally come to shore.”


End file.
